30 for 30 running thread

So you think it would have been better had it started "Brian Bosworth was born March 9, 1965, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ..." ?

I thought the device worked fine, with him unearthing all those artifacts in his father's storage unit. Whether or not that was authentic and he really had no idea that stuff was there I guess is an open question.

 

Bump, because the Randy Moss one airs tonight. The high school football and basketball footage is absurd, by all accounts.

 

Rand University was very well done. Pretty powerful stuff from Moss' longtime buddies. And yeah, the highlights were absurd, indeed.

 

I read some comments from the director. Bosworth's mom was trying to get rid of the boxes and told Brian to go through them and keep what he wanted, toss them or whatever. By luck the director found out in an offhanded phone conversation with the mom. The mom was like, "Do you want any of that, because if not, I'm going to throw it out." The director then told Bosworth to hold off on going through the boxes until he could get his cameras there. So it some ways it was set up, but Bosworth and his son were really unearthing the stuff for the first time.

The director said the hardest part in coordinating all that was convincing the mom not to junk it all, because she really had a bee in her bonnet to get rid of it.

 

I liked the Moss one but I thought there were some pretty big missing voices:
1) The other kid involved in the fight? Does he agree that Moss had nothing to do with busting the spleen? (although I'd argue two kicks to the back of someone's head who is already down is nothing to sneeze at)
2) The white kid who got beat up. Did he really write "all niggers must die" on the desk?
3) The baby momma. Moss was acused of being abusive once. Was this a one time thing or did he hit her other times?
4) The prosecutor -- did he believe Moss' story about the fight?

The documentary did a good job showing his anger and depression that is Rand, but I also think it was too quick to assume that Moss' story is correct. Schools don't turn against their star athlete over one fight.

I thought the part at the end with his friend the pitcher was very powerful -- but I also don't think baseball teams throw away a 7th round draft pick for smoking pot once in his first year in the minors. Something else was going on there.

 

A bee in her bonnet!!!!

I'm having flashbacks to that old King of Queens episode now. Thank you!

 

You're right that it seemed there was a lot swept under the rug at the expense of "check out these highlights!" Yeah, Moss seems like a decent, self-effacing dude now, but not sure that makes up for the fact that he was kind of a turd from ages 17-30.

"Rand University" wasn't nearly as good as the 30 for 30 a few years ago on Allen Iverson, which dealt with similar subject matter.

Then again, the Iverson doc was by the director of Hoop Dreams, so I guess it stands to reason it would be superior.

 

After the one on "The U" I've always had the view that while interesting, 30 on 30
does at times rewrite history to the degree that would make Oliver Stone blush.

 

30 for 30s have quite often been willing to massage the facts to better sell some pre-conceived narrative theme the filmmaker came up with. In the Moss one, it's apparent a theme the filmmaker had in mind was that Moss' youthful trouble was the result of having to grow up a poor black kid in the depths of rural racist Redneckistan, and if a little historical whitewashing was needed to better sell the theme, so be it. McNuggets is right, that piece was only interested in portraying Moss' version of the story--the other side's be damned.

And, btw, a moment that caught my attention was when they showed the brief clip of his classmate being interviewed and I believe he said something along the lines of "I'm glad he got kicked out, this was his seventh incident attacking a student.." Did I hear that correctly? If so ...seventh? The film only discussed one such incident, were there six others?

And also glossed over was the fact that Moss' issues didn't end when he left West Virginia. Instead, he continued to have occasional bouts with knuckleheadedism throughout his NFL career. Are we also putting that on the yokels back in WV?

 

They didn't do much with his NFL career in the doc. It was focused more on his upbringing and through college.

 

Moss sure has gotten nicer since he discovered the world has no use for him anymore.

 

The scope was limited to his HS and college career, and up to his NFL drafting, but I was kind of wondering why as I watched it and realized, "Oh hey, this is only going on for another 10 minutes and we haven't even gotten to the draft." It seemed like there was at least another 30 minutes of content, whether they wanted to include his NFL career - which I'm sure they could have gotten pro and con sources on, given how tight ESPN is with the league - or dive deeper on his HS issues. I've still liked this latest batch of 30 for 30 films, but they definitely feel a bit lower in budget and scope than some of the earlier ones.